


Good Boys Go

by boonies



Category: DBSK|Tohoshinki|TVXQ, JYJ - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boonies/pseuds/boonies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>NaNoWriMo #1: Jaejoong travels half the world to find street performer Yoochun after seeing a fifteen second instavid of him singing Paradise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Boys Go

"Come see this," Junsu says.

 

*

 

"Stop it," Jaejoong whines. "I don't care."

 

*

 

"Hyung, just watch it once."

 

*

 

The sum of Jaejoong's parts mends when Junsu shoves a phone at his face and presses play.

 

The video is filtered, gritty, vintage, but it's Jaejoong's new song.

 

There's a street in Seoul or Busan or maybe Incheon, wet with rain, and a keyboard outside of a piano store.

 

There's an umbrella and a boy beneath it.

 

_Yoochun_ , the girl behind the camera laughs, _focus_.

 

_I don't know the words_ , Yoochun grins, makes a dumb face, mugs for the camera.

 

_Liar_.

 

_Okay, okay_.

 

A familiar chord echoes, slow, sharp, flattened by rain, gnarled by wind.

 

It dies and the boy breathes,

 

_look at my eyes_.

 

*

 

Jaejoong falls in love.

 

He falls in love in fifteen second increments, falls in love in ways that should be impossible, falls so hard and so fast he knows the feeling can't be real or sane or lasting.

 

He falls in love so greatly he feels swathed in shame.

 

But he watches the video again.

 

Tells himself—at first—it's just to study the competition, just to observe and to learn from a potential rival, to improve his technique and to hone his craft.

 

Except he watches the video in bed, on his side, one arm under his pillow, phone clutched tightly in a sweaty palm.

 

He watches it repeatedly, devours the way Yoochun's neck stretches, the way his throat jerks, caught in a spent gasp, the way his jaw clenches attractively when he swallows.

 

But it's the eyes that get him.

 

The way they narrow pleasantly and how they slant, hooded with lust and secrets. How his lashes lower to brush against sun-kissed cheeks, dampened by raindrops. How his hair curls in fine waves under a big soft mickey mouse beanie.

 

How he seems to know exactly how and what Jaejoong felt and meant and thought when he wrote the song.

 

As though he knows _better_.

 

*

 

During his next concert, Jaejoong scans the audience.

 

But it's dark and there's so many people and so he just sings honestly and with enough passion to bind the stadium into a stunned silence.

 

*

 

"Wanna watch," Junsu yawns and sucks down a smoothie. "6002 has a new video up."

 

*

 

This time it's Tokyo.

 

Shibuya at dusk, lit up with Christmas lights, crowded with people, and Yoochun stands at a busy intersection.

 

There's a thin shirt pulled low, one collarbone peeking through a mess of dark hair, snowflakes melting on his lips.

 

_Don't make me_ , he sighs, but his mouth curls.

 

The camera tilts, shakes, drops its focus as a boot collides with Yoochun's shin.

 

_Fine_ , he growls.

 

Want pools in Jaejoong's gut.

 

Yoochun straightens, pushes his glasses up, leans into the shot, bats his eyes, and sighs, lazy and charming and flirtatious,

 

_let me show you what you're missing_.

 

*

 

Jaejoong books an impromptu concert in Tokyo.

 

*

 

He watches both videos before practice.

 

Thinks about mirrors and reflections and two-sided coins. Thinks about writing a new song, about writing a thousand, about stitching lyrics into cold calloused palms, about tattooing names and promises on a pale chest, about kissing a path down a shivering spine and warmth and life into trembling fingers.

 

*

 

He sings that song last.

 

Saves it for when his voice is all but gone and his emotions are a thin frayed string of desire and unbridled need.

 

Until his voice sounds like a secret.

 

He sings the song like tomorrow can't come, won't come, like there's a reward after the chorus, like someone will serve Yoochun up if he does well, if he pours it all out, incoherently, with an ache trapped in every syllable.

 

He sings as though his soul is dying.

 

*

 

He finds the new video before Junsu.

 

It's an unfamiliar setting, western, with cobblestones and dark gothic cathedrals.

 

Yoochun's dodging the camera, fingerless gloves wrapped around a coffee cup, breath ghosting above his thick knit scarf.

 

_He'll want royalties if he finds out_ , Yoochun smiles and sips his coffee and Jaejoong's chest tightens, ribcage cutting into his lungs, bruising his heart.

 

_Do it._

 

Grudgingly, Yoochun murmurs a halfhearted, _I'd be fine with just you in my life—_

 

He glances down at his hands, then at the shrouded cathedral behind him.

 

_Yoochun. You can do better._

 

Yoochun stares into the camera, something between a compliment and an apology.

 

His eyes soften.

 

He parts his lips and sings a soft broken,

 

_I love you_

 

on repeat.

 

*

 

Jaejoong announces a European tour, much to everyone's surprise.

 

Mostly his own.

 

*

 

He watches the videos during breakfast or lunch or dinner.

 

Sometimes instead of breakfast and lunch and dinner.

 

Thinks deeply on where he should go to catch Yoochun, what he should use as bait, as incentive, to lure and trap a stranger, to cross and tangle their lives together, even temporarily.

 

Feels like a professional asshole.

 

And then time twists and slips around him. A season feels like ten. It's spring for him. It seems to perpetually be winter for Yoochun. Morning coffee for Jaejoong. Soft lullabies for Yoochun.

 

And so Jaejoong starts to think, well, who does this, what kind of lunatic just takes off and travels the world, with that voice and that face, who just...

 

Who lives that carelessly, that fearlessly, that fully.

 

And why.

 

*

 

Jaejoong wakes up one morning and thinks,

 

_why not_.

 

*

 

"...Germany?" Junsu asks, brows knitted.

 

*

 

He's close.

 

So close he can practically see the ghost of Yoochun's footprints in the snow.

 

So he smokes a quick cigarette in the cold morning, at sunup, on a quiet Berlin street, at some corner with a guitar strapped to his back as though he's still a starving artsy brat begging for change.

 

But the soles of his shoes are unscuffed, new, expensive, and he wonders about the shoes Yoochun wears, how worn and traveled they must be, how worn and traveled Yoochun must be.

 

So he tries to tuck that voice—its depth, its sadness, its strength—into a mental snow globe, small but sturdy, delicate and unassuming enough to carry everywhere, to wind up in the morning and fall asleep to at night, to play and play and play it until the pins snap, the glass cracks, and the melody fades.

 

Each time it breaks, Jaejoong replaces it with a bigger, more durable one.

 

 

*

 

A soft beep wakes him up.

 

A new video's been posted and Jaejoong shifts under his sheets, voice rough with sleep, mind hazy with half-remembered dreams of holding out a hand—and of Yoochun who takes it and grins and says, _I've been waiting_.

 

_Not doing it_ , real Yoochun says, haloed by a burning sunrise, backpack slipping off one broad shoulder.

 

_You're doing it_.

 

The camera pans wide, to a stretch of snow-capped mountains and frozen lakes and giant metal bridges.

 

_Sing your song. For good luck._

 

Yoochun makes a face, scrunches his features into something stupid, something perfect, something brimming with all good things, like warm pajamas out of the dryer, newborn baby kittens, soft hopeful happy things.

 

_I'm afraid of heights_ , Yoochun tells the camera, and Jaejoong knows this face by now, knows the smattering of scars, the dip and slope of his nose, the pinch between his eyebrows, the quiet shared intimacy burning through the lens, through the screen, through every layer between him and Jaejoong.

 

_Yoochun. You're not afraid of anything._

 

Yoochun's lips twitch at the corners.

 

He sheds his backpack and turns away, flexes his shoulders, tugs the bungee ropes, and nods.

 

His shoulder blades shift as though they're great big wings and Jaejoong can hear it, can hear, _no pain, no fear_ , but Jaejoong is afraid of so much, Jaejoong is afraid of everything—failure, rejection, aging, he's afraid of others but more himself, afraid of living and dying and the things in between.

 

But Yoochun spreads his arms wide, laughs down the steep murky precipice, happy, free, fearless.

 

He _leaps_.

 

And takes Jaejoong's heart with him.

 

*

 

"Hyung," Junsu greets in passing, "what are you smiling about."

 

Jaejoong looks up.

 

Has no idea.

 

Can't stop.

 

"Hey. How does North America sound."

 

*

 

 

The asphalt beneath his boots burns.

 

Jaejoong leans his forehead against the wall, tries to cool down, tries to think, has to catch up, catch his breath, catch Yoochun.

 

There's faith and fear warring in his stomach, leaving battle scars, and when he sings to an audience of fifty thousand plus, he sings Yoochun's song twice, sings it with a mouthful of _I'm glad you're alive I'm glad you exist_ the first time, and s _top running don't hide_ the second.

 

Turns his gaze into a smolder for the camera, tries to convey longing to a stranger he knows better than himself, but the song is so short, too short, like a swinging pendulum, cutting seconds off with every swipe and pushing Jaejoong in all the wrong directions.

 

*

 

It's night and there's an ocean and a boat and a starry sky.

 

_It's a stupid song_ , Yoochun says and his hair is short.

 

It's cropped close to his scalp, buzzed thick but so _so_ short, and Jaejoong gasps, finds himself audibly protesting, smothering down a petulant whine, mourns and rages until Yoochun shifts and looks at the camera.

 

_It's a really stupid song_ , he slurs, _everything's stupid_.

 

There's a moment of silence as the boat pitches over a wave and Jaejoong spends it imagining what that buzz-cut would feel like under his fingertips, soft and coarse at once, what it would feel like on his stomach, his spine, the backs of his thighs, what it would feel like beneath his lips.

 

_You gonna sing it?_

 

Yoochun's eyes go soft and warm.

 

Jaejoong logs the look.

 

It's the kind that slakes some primal endless thirst inside him but replaces it with an oppressive hunger and Jaejoong squirms in his seat, shoves his earbuds in deeper, cranks up the volume until there's just Yoochun's red ears nose cheeks and his drunken silky voice and as long as there's a trace of him in this world, Jaejoong can breathe.

 

Then Yoochun crosses his eyes unattractively and fucks up the moment entirely but Jaejoong is dumb.

 

He's so fucking dumb and he's ruined by this dumb fucking face, undone by this dumb fucking voice, and he feels like he can't wear his own skin anymore, not until Yoochun rides out the lyrics, the five seconds of _give me one last hug give me one last kiss_.

 

And when Yoochun hums and sings, _I don't want you to go_ and smoothly adds _please_ , the camera shakes and blurs, dips to someone's lap, and the lens splatters with tears or the ocean.

 

_Do you gotta go, Yoochunnie._

 

Yoochun's eyes fill with emotion. The reckless, desperate kind to go with his chapped red lips.

 

But then he smiles again, eyes bright and wet, and salutes the camera from a weird angle, tone laced with a quiet sort of knowledge and a whole universe of secrets.

_Yup. Gotta._

 

*

 

Jaejoong works it out.

 

Can't keep chasing, so he baits instead.

 

Returns to Seoul, records a song, buries in it secret messages and painfully obvious ones, and maybe this makes him crazy, makes him delusional, makes him scary, but he just wants to say hello, wants to say, _yeah, this is fucked up, but I know you I think I've always known you_.

 

He feels clever and productive and fulfilled and close.

 

Can taste joy and victory and Yoochun's lips.

 

*

 

On a Thursday afternoon, the agency uploads Jaejoong's new music video.

 

The hits pile quickly and Jaejoong takes time between promotions to check for related links.

 

By Saturday, there are countless covers of his new song, acoustic, piano, a cappella, on every social networking site, in every language, from every race and gender and age.

 

None from 6002.

 

Jaejoong checks every day.

 

Then twice a day.

 

Then finally, he pulls up 6002's account.

 

There's only a single video left.

 

It's fifteen seconds long and untitled.

 

Numb, Jaejoong presses play.

 

It's just fifteen seconds.

 

Ten seconds of rocky suspension bridges and speedboats and Yoochun's laughter, Yoochun's silence, Yoochun's eyes, happy, sad, miraculous, five seconds of _I'm your I'm your paradise_.

 

And then he fades to black.

 

And there's only this:

 

_in memory of_

 

_park yoochun_

 

_who saw it all_

 

_but loved you best_

 

_*_

 

Jaejoong sings.

 

In a crystal cage, fingers wrapped around the bars, fingers wrapped around the mic, around his throat and heart, he breaks, shatters his soul on a jagged immovable rock and scatters the pieces into his lyrics as though he carries the burden of two hearts.

 

He bends his body at the bridge and hides his eyes during the chorus, sinks deep into that unbreakable snow globe and pulls out only the fragments no one will miss.

 

After, he retires Yoochun's song.

 

And then himself.


End file.
